Tobias didn’t stop scrubbing. “Tell her it’s none of her business.”
“But it’s mine,” I said. “Jessica asks me, too. Shouldn’t we at least talk about it?”
Tobias stopped and looked at me. “Do you want to?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He seemed to consider this for a moment. A change of plans, a subway reroute, a rainstorm in the forecast for a summer picnic.
“That’s good to know,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Tobias sighed. “It means what it means. It’s good to know. I didn’t know marriage was so important to you, and now I do.”
“I didn’t say it was so important. I just said we should talk about it. That’s what couples do when they’ve been together as long as we have.”
Tobias set his plate down on the nightstand. “By all means, tell me what other couples do. We should take notes! How are we even surviving on our own?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No, that’s exactly what you meant. You’re never okay with us being us. You always need to make sure we’re falling in line.” He was getting angry. The vein on his forehead twitched when he was worked up.
“Is it so terrible for me to want what other people have? Jessica and Sumir—”
“Because they’re the picture of happiness?”
Tobias liked Sumir, but they were nothing alike, and I knew, although he’d never said it, that as Jessica had judgments about our life, Tobias’s lack of steady income, our nuclear ways, Tobias had his feelings about theirs. Being stuck, being normalized—those were the things that kept him up at night.
“What’s so wrong with them?” I was yelling now. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. The pasta shifted dangerously in my lap.
“That’s really the life you want? To move to Connecticut? You don’t even see her anymore. They’ll never travel. They’ll be stuck in that house and then a bigger one and then a bigger one…”
“Yeah, well, at least they’ll be together.” And there it was—the thing that was always underneath the surface of our fights. You could leave again.
“Do you trust me?” Tobias asked. The energy was out of his voice.
“Yes,” I said. I exhaled all the air I had been holding. “Of course I do.”
“Do you need me to marry you to prove I love you?”
“No,” I said. I hung my head and looked at the mess of pasta on my plate. It seemed so stupid now that we were downshifting. I had been whipped into a frenzy by Kendra—why?
“You know there are no guarantees in life, and that I can’t promise you anything for certain, just like you can’t promise me anything for certain.”
“But I can,” I said. “I can promise you.” I took his hand. “I love you so much.”
His green eyes looked into mine. He tucked some hair behind my ear. “I love you, too,” he said. “It’s gross how much. You know that. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you to be happy.”
“Five,” I said.
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Hot,” he said.
I moved his hand to my chest.
“I was talking about outside, but this, too.” He gave my boob a light squeeze.
“Neck.” He kissed me there. “Promises.”
“Really?” My voice had an edge to it, he could tell.
He tilted my face up with his hand. “Sabby, if what you really want is to get married, we can go to the courthouse right now. Anytime. I want you to be happy.”
I felt my chest pull. I knew he did. I knew he meant it.
“Love,” I said.
“Love last,” he said. “First sex.”
He pitched me back onto the bed. We didn’t talk about marriage for another year.
9:58 P.M.
“OF COURSE WE WERE HAPPY,” Tobias says. He’s still holding my hand. “But sometimes it felt like we left too much up to fate.”
“Interesting,” Conrad says. He’s leaning forward, his elbows on the table. Audrey swats them off.
“Sabby had this idea that we were fated to be together.”
I try to pull my hand away. It feels like he’s exposing me in public here tonight. I don’t like it. I thought we had a contract to stay in that place together.
“Stop,” he says, holding my palm steady. “It’s true. You were always pissed I didn’t remember you from Ashes and Snow.”
He’s not wrong, strictly speaking. Although pissed isn’t the right word. Sad is probably closer to it.
“She had this sense it was just supposed to work, and you weren’t supposed to have to work for it,” Jessica says. “Like their love story was so epic the day-to-day didn’t matter. But that’s what relationships are. They’re the day-to-day.”
“I’m right here,” I tell her. I pull my hand out of Tobias’s so I can more properly face Jessica. “Can you please stop talking about me as if I’m a child in the other room?”
Jessica rolls her eyes. “I didn’t say that. I just…”
“What?” I snap at her. “You didn’t want me to be with him. Just admit it. You act like you loved him.”
“I went with you!” Jessica says. She’s gesturing wildly now. “I practically pushed you. I was the one who found that photography club. I was the one who drove you to UCLA.”
Tobias is looking at me curiously. “You never told me how you got that photo.”
“Of course I did. After Ashes and Snow I didn’t even know your name. I went to UCLA. I found the photography club. You weren’t there, but I bought that photo.”
“No,” Tobias says. “You never told me that.” He looks concerned, stressed. Flushed like he’s just come in from running.
“See this, right here? This is what I mean!” Jessica says. “You both always thought it was coincidence, but it wasn’t. You needed everything to seem like magic. You couldn’t accept that you were both human.”
We found each other again, against all odds. In New York City! We were magic.
“I didn’t need magic,” Tobias says, mostly to me. He still looks alarmed.
“Where did you think she got the photograph?” Audrey interjects. “Surely…”
“You knew,” Robert says. “You just didn’t want to admit it to yourself, because of the responsibility it would mean, because of what you’d owe her.”
Robert’s tone has changed. There is something almost paternal in it. It makes us all stop and look at him.
“No,” I say. “Come on.” Because if I’m going to defend one of them, it’s going to be Tobias.
Tobias exhales. “He’s right,” he says. “I think so, anyway.” He runs his hands over his face. I feel my body tighten next to him. “Sometimes I was scared of letting you down,” he says. “You thought so highly of me. I wasn’t always that person.”
“I saw you,” I say. “I saw us. I saw this whole future.…”
Tobias looks at Robert. The two of them exchange a glance, and for the first time tonight I take them in like this, sitting next to each other. They look nothing alike. Tobias with his big head of curls and bright green eyes, my father with his near-balding head, patched skin, and sunken chest. But there’s a nervous quality to them both. They’re on high alert. I remember a still image, like a snapshot, of my father pacing in the kitchen, his fingers nipping at one another. An uncomfortable thought presents itself. I push it back down.
“Fine,” I say. “You were human. I was wrong about you. It was my fault.”
“That’s not what I said,” Tobias says. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I hold my arms out. “Well, if it wasn’t my fault and it wasn’t your fault, then what?”
Silence falls over the table. I hear Audrey clear her throat. Finally, Conrad leans forward.
“Then we order dessert,” he says. Audrey shakes her head at him. “What?” he says. “I need something sweet.”